gather

Gather and Make Sense

You will need to familiarize yourself with the website for //**Literacy with ICT Across the Curriculum**// . In particular, you will want to look at the **interactive continuum** that describes what students look like when they are at different stages of their learning journey. Down the left hand side of the continuum, you will see the five Big Ideas of the Cognitive Domain that students engage in as they learn in any curriculuar context:

• Plan and Question
• Gather and Make Sense
• Produce to Show Understanding
• Communicate
• Reflect

You will note that across the top of the continuum are three Learning Stages based on the work of Benjamin Bloom. Bloom states that students go through six stages of cognitve development:

• Know - Comprehend
• Analyze - Apply
• Synthesize - Evaluate

The 5 Big Ideas of the Cognitive Domain and the 3 Learning Stages form a matrix of 15 groups of descriptors. Descriptors are not ‘curricular outcomes’ in themselves. Descriptors ‘describe behaviour of students that can be observed as they use ICT to learn.
Dig deeper into a few of the descriptors by clicking on the one, two, or three icons that accompany each descriptors.
FIRST ICON : examples that provide various contexts for observing the descriptor
SECOND ICON : supporting skills that students will need in order to demonstrate what the descriptor describes
THIRD ICON : a student-friendly explanation that students can use to make a self-assessment of their literacy with ICT

You may already have noticed that the continuum is split into two "domains" - the Cognitive and the Affective. The Cognitive (thinking) domain has the 5 Big Ideas noted above. The Affective (emotion) domain has 4 Big Ideas:

• Ethics and Responsibility - using ICT in a manner that is both ethical and responsible.
• Social Implications -Social Implications - understanding that using or not using ICT has implications for society.
• Collaboration Collaboration - using ICT to communicate and work with people both within the school community and in the global community.
• Motivation and Confidence - understanding how to solve, with confidence, ICT problems as they arise .

The Affective domain is as important as the Cognitive. Students need to understand how to use ICT ethically and responsibly. Think of access to the Internet as access to a large city like Toronto. Would we allow children to wander the city streets without preparing them for the sights and the people they would encounter? Of course not! Similarily, we need to prepare students to deal with the information they will encounter on their ICT journey to ensure they stay safe and secure.
Students also need to be concerned with the ethical use of ICT. Do they know how to credit sources they use in their research and in their creation of ICT documents and presentations? Do they acknowledge the intellectual property rights of others? And do they apply guidelines for ethical and responsible use of ICT?
You'll also notice across the top of the Affective domain that there are three bolded learning stages.

• Becomes Aware
• Believes
• Values

These learning stages were identified and described by David Krathwohl who worked with Benjamin Bloom and created a taxonomy of educatational objectives based on the Affective Domain.
Visit **this page** to learn more about the ethical and responsible use of ICT.

Now that you know that a student literate with ICT chooses and uses ICT, responsibly and ethically, to think critically and creatively about information and communication, you are ready for the remainder of your task.
Where do your students fit on the continuum of literacy with ICT? Where do YOU fit on the continuum? To guide you, M.E.C.Y. has created 4 snapshots of the continuum, numbered from 1 - 4. Each snapshot contains benchmarks of where students may be along their learning journey.
Snapshot 1 is a picture of the Emerging Learner from approximately pre-school to grade 3.
Snapshot 2 is a picture of the Developing Learner from approximately grade 2 to grade 5.
Snapshot 3 is a picture of the Transitioning Learner from approximately grade 4 - grade 7.
Snapshot 4 is a picture of the Expanding Learner from approximately grade 6 - adult.
Visit **this page** to learn more and to select the snapshot that is appropriate for the learners you will profile. Keep in mind that because this is a Developmental continuum, not all students will be at the same level and you may need to use more than one of the snapshots. Notice also that, as you would expect with a continuum rather than a curriculum, the snapshots overlap.

Share what you have learned with your group.